IS BIOLUMINESCENT TURBULENCE AN EXAMPLE OF SELF-ORGANIZED CRITICALITY

When mechanically stimulated by flow, some marine cells react by flash ing blue light or bioluminescing. The flash response give a relatively non-invasive measure of turbulent behavior which lends itself readily and quantitatively to statistical models of fluid structure. We repor t substantial agreement between a series of experiments performed usin g stimulated light from the bioluminescence of seawater flowing throug h a glass pipe and theoretical predictions based on models proposed fo r describing a self-organized critical phenomenon. In this way, biolum inescent turbulent flow can be taken as a natural and potentially robu st example connecting long-held scaling problems in turbulence to rece nt thinking on fractals and self-organized criticality.